'This Week' Transcript: Economic Panel

August 15, 2010

Page 8 of 16

That said, nationally, the Pakistani media is not covering the U.S.
relief effort very closely. They're focusing -- perhaps not
surprisingly -- on the Pakistani relief effort. And in a sign of the
sensitivity of simply being associated with the U.S., the U.S. will not
identify local Pakistani NGOs that it's giving aid to so it doesn't open
up the risk that they're subject -- that they're targeted for terror
attacks.

AMANPOUR: And, Jim, very quickly, the Pakistani troops, are they
being diverted from fighting the militants?

SCIUTTO: Well, there are 50,000 Pakistani troops involved in this
relief effort. Pakistani officials say that none of them have been
diverted from the border or from counterterror operations. And U.S.
officials that we've spoken to today say they believe those
reassurances. And they say, Christiane, that counterterror operations
with the Pakistanis are underway as we speak.

AMANPOUR: Jim, thanks so much, from Islamabad.

And in response to my questions on the disaster, you can see
comments from U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan
Richard Holbrooke on our Web site at abcnews.com/thisweek.

And coming up next, the president's decision to weigh in on the
controversial Islamic center near Ground Zero on our roundtable with
Cokie Roberts, Matthew Dowd, David Ignatius, and Chrystia Freeland.

(UNKNOWN): How is that healing, by building a mosque, an
in-your-face mosque at Ground Zero?

(UNKNOWN): It's like spraying swastikas all over a Jewish memorial.

BLOOMBERG: We would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who
we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower
Manhattan.

KING: This is such a sensitive issue. This, to me, is such a wrong
place to have a mosque such as this.

OBAMA: I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their
religion, as everyone else in this country. That includes the right to
build a place of worship and a community center on private property in
lower Manhattan in accordance with local laws and ordinances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: The president waded into the controversy over the Islamic
center near Ground Zero, one of the topics that we'll be discussing this
morning in our roundtable, with political strategist Matthew Dowd,
Chrystia Freeland of Thomson Reuters, David Ignatius of the Washington
Post, and our own Cokie Roberts. George Will is still on vacation.

Thank you all for joining us. You did see that speech by the
president on Friday night at the Iftar Ramadan dinner at the White
House. Why do you think he said that then?

ROBERTS: I think he said that then because he actually believes
that, but the real question is, why that he didn't say the next day
something more? Do you want to talk about that?

AMANPOUR: Yes, we do, because we're going to put up some poll
numbers and just show everybody what the poll numbers are on this
issue. One poll says, when they ask about what people think about the
plan to build the mosque, that only 30 percent say it's appropriate and
64 percent say it's wrong, but when they say do the Muslim group have a
right to build the mosque, 61 percent say yes and 34 percent say no.